[Midnightkitkat]

To adopt you must either have a founder and be level 1. Or, you can adopt this one as your founder!

Happy anniversary VoK!!!
Edits
Large: Bee wings
Medium: Fullbody fur, Full mane, Tail
Minor: Folded ears

For this fluffy poof I would like to know their favorite flower.
-BUT-
I would also like to know how this flowers meaning fits into their story and/or personality!

Prompt can be answered with either 500 words or 1 art piece.
This competition ends on the 31th of August at 23:59 CS Time.

Code: Select all

[b]Username:[/b]
[b]Lion name:[/b]
[b]Lion gender:[/b]
[b]Pride:[/b]
[b]Pride Status:[/b]
[b]Flower:[/b]
[b]Prompt:[/b] (500word or 1 art)

main thread I prompts/leveling up I artist search

[Jantzi01]

Username: Jantzi01
Lion name: Kalei
Lion gender: Male
Link to Pride: The Ushirikiano Pride
Pride Status: Beekeeper lol
Flower: Anemone (sickness)
Prompt:
Kalei was always a sickly cub growing up. Nothing too major, he just always seemed to have a cold that never really went away. So everyone brushed it off. After all, it's just a cold, right?

His sickness continued to plague him as he got older. Still nothing too bad, but it seemed to be getting worse. The coughs that racked his body made it impossible to breathe at times, and his nose was constantly running. His throat was so sore that he couldn't really talk most of the time. Downing gallons of honey seemed to be the only thing that helped, but even then it didn't do much.

He tried to not let it affect him too much. He still continued his training to be a beekeeper, and started learning about flowers. He discovered the anemone flower when he was almost finished with his training. When he found out what it meant, he laughed, raspy and painfully, but he laughed. He didn't think that there was a flower that represented illness, and he certainly didn't think it would be one that was as beautiful as the anemone.

Kalei started his own garden near his beehive, trying to make it easier for the bees to get the nectar. He tried to keep it varied, but anemone flowers made up the majority of the garden. It almost eased his pain, knowing that there's something that he can relate to. Something so beautiful and friendly looking, but that has a terrible secret. Whether it be the meaning of a flower, or an illness that has haunted him since birth.

And his condition didn't improve as he reached adulthood. He went to Bahari one day, fed up with everything, and asked what could be done for him. She sighed sadly, before looking up at him with kind eyes, a flash of despair hidden behind a wall of empathy. She sat him down, and did some tests. When she was finished, the look in her eyes told Kalei that it wasn't good.

"I'm so sorry Kalei," She said, "Nothing can be done. You have the Red Death."

At that, his whole world seemed to shatter. The Red Death was a horrible disease. And it almost certainly meant that he would die. Shell-shocked, he left Bahari's den and went to his garden, desperately trying to find comfort among familiarity. He collapsed in the flowers, tired and alone, with only the bees for company.

403 Words

[Kitten-Girl-500]

Username: Kitten-Girl-500
Lion name: Bumble
Lion gender: Male
Pride: Summitfall Pride
Pride Status: Fyto - cultivator
Flower: Monkshood
Prompt: Just like the monkshood flower, Bumble seems docile on the outside, and from a distance can be quite friendly. He seems nice, and will treat you kindly, just as long as you don't get too close.

But as soon as you mess with him, Bumble turns vicious. He will defend his family with every ounce of his being, whether the enemy is an assassin or a fool that got too close. Like a real bee, Bumble hates when anyone disturbs what he deems as his own. He usually tries words first now, but when that fails, he goes to brute strength. There's a surprising amount of muscle underneath all that fluff.

Bumble likes to be around monkshood flowers whenever he's feeling down or angry. They remind him that there's something like him out there, that knows what it's like to be this way.

Bumble was born with wild emotions that were unable to be tamed by any mortal being. Paired with extreme sensitivity to touch, it became tough to manage. Add that to the fact that his extra thick fur was extra painful when accidentally tugged, you got a recipe for disaster.

When he was just a young lion, he was touchy to the point of lashing out with claws and teeth whenever someone so much as brushed him. Of course, no one wanted to be around him then, for fear of being maimed or scarred. They fled, leaving Bumble to live by himself in a private den. That experience led Bumble to realize that even though he didn't like being touched, being alone was worse.

And so Bumble set out on a path of redemption, trying to bring his friends and family close to him again. Ultimately, he had done too much to be forgiven by his pridemates and friends. Only his family loved him enough to try again and attempt a healthy relationship. If Bumble was being honest, that was fine with him. He didn't need anyone that wasn't willing to bear with him through his... issues.

There is only one lion who truly knows and loves him, and that's Khaysa. Khaysa understood what it was to be an outsider in her own pride, and she accepted Bumble for who he was. She is the one lion that Bumble will tolerate touching him, though that doesn't mean he has to like it. Khaysa understands his preferences and only touches him on occasion, or when necessary. Their love is still evident, even if they don't hug or nuzzle like other couples. Bumble does his best to control himself around her, and usually succeeds. But even when he releases his emotions in a furious outburst, Khaysa knows that he's letting off steam. They understand each other, in a way that no one else will.

464 words

[Nia The Elf]

Username: Nia The Elf
Lion name: Huon
Lion gender: Male
Pride: Red Eagle
Pride Status: Druid
Flower: Hawthorn
Prompt:
Huon; practically the lion embodiment of a bee, worked so hard and fast - but his aches never dulled; for the pride's only mantra was for hard work. They worked hard through the year in preparation for winter. The only relief and solace he could find was within the beauty of the hardy Hawthorn. An abundance of white blossoms which he would pass by on his duties.

He considered these flowers his favourite, for the Hawthorn always attracts bees so busy, but they slow when around the white thorny flora. In what little time Huon could find to study and learn the natural world; he found the ogham symbol for Hawthorn offered clarity, patience and stillness, a sweet release he wished he could have, if not for his aches of cold. The winter climate worsened his health, which he had no diagnosis for other than the feeling of sharp pain.

Medicinal properties of the Hawthorn included lowering blood pressure and stimulating the heart, perhaps why the bees seemed to slow when harvesting from those blossoms; why Huon felt so at peace when sneaking gazing glances.

Huon had never been close up to a Hawthorn before, he had only ever seen it across from him when he was working. There had been a number of chances when his pridemate's backs were turned to their own work, that he could have stolen across to the tree and smelt the dew of the florets before hopping back into place without a doubt.
He hadn't chanced it before, he had been too tired.

Chancing it, however, he had decided that afternoon. With lions facing away from him, busy with more concerning matters, Huon crept over to the Hawthorn tree and lowered his nose to one of the branches; shaggy mane brushing the petals scattered across the ground lightly.

Sky flashing white, the world around Huon changed and warped, and as he stumbled back, his vision was filled with a more luxurious land of vibrant flora; little creatures with pointed features sat on the branches of the hawthorn and Huon had to glance behind him in worry of his pride noticing his absence.

Turning back to the light creatures before him, one began to speak.

"You are drawn to the Hawthorn, yes?" It giggled, light as tinkling bells, "Of course you have, you are pure like a bee, Hawthorn matches you perfectly.
These trees are under the fae's protection, look into the boughs and see our reflection!"

Another fae joined, "We saw you are tired, needing assistance; so here we've brought you across the distance. Leave your old home at last our little friend Bee, we'll send you away somewhere warm where you can be free!"

A cacophony of giggling and laughter tinkled in Huon's ears and before he knew it, both he and the hawthorn - now empty of fae - were transported across planes and landed safely to a new home for both. A place to relax and ease his stiff, cold legs.

500 words

[Runnersback]

Username:Runnersback
Lion name:Asali (Swahili for honey)
Lion gender:Male
Pride: Realms of L’Oasis Lo
Pride Status:Angel
Flower:Asian Bleeding Heart
Prompt:[500/500]

“That one...That one right there sire. His heart bleeds black and yellow.”

That flower wasn’t always a flower. Nor was he always a bumbling bee. They were both beautiful lions with two different values on life,one callous and poisoned the other aesthetic and bewitching. The two were absolute classics: a blue collared worker with a heart of gold alongside a spoiled queen with a garden full of hearts. The bleeding heart was absolutely perfect for the two, Asali brought seeds to plant while the queen plotted her attacks on the humble blue collared worker.She had plans to coil sweet Asali around her tail and to bring the empire down alongside the king. But she couldn’t enact them just yet, she had to get close first...

A new morning had dawned for the lions, Asali was back in the gardens. The black lion with a flowing elegant mane was clearing weeds. He had to cultivate these bleeding hearts quickly, his job was on the line as rumors of scandal was starting to form under his name. Asali didn’t understand why someone was so cruel but to clear his anxiety he was planning to make a beautiful bouquet so to change his mind. He knew it was a long shot but despite the chaos that was happening he was still cheerful. As the gong sounded ending the work day the black lion was still in the fields collecting flowers and babies breath.

The queen dressed in crimson decided to make her move as she watched Asali from her window. Adela the lioness with golden fur and red highlights sauntered down the halls making her move.After minutes passed Adela made it to the garden and buried herself into the bleeding hearts waiting for Asali to notice her. She frowned growing impatient and cleared her throat spooking the black lion. Asali whipped around seeing the queen looking lovely in crimson.

Asali cleared his throat before bowing,“Hello Queen Adela.”

“Hello Asali, these flowers are quite lovely especially the bleeding hearts.” She purred as she swept up around him. After minutes of flirtation and sweet talk she had gotten Asali under her claw, destroyed the bouquet, started a love affair, had the blaspheming knight fed to hyenas, and her husband poisoned with her lovely flowers.

What a day that was....And the days followed were filled with utter grief in mourning of the king. Under Adela’s rule the kingdom had collapsed into ruin and chaos. The Queen’s policies on life became unbearable for those in the kingdom even Asali was shattered...

Days turned to weeks. Weeks turned to months before the kingdom turned up a traveler. A scrawny lioness who judged the characters of those around her. And she did so.. With one swish she revealed her true form as a witch. She cursed the lions of the castle turning servants to stone... Asali to a bleeding lover of black and yellow as a bee. And Queen Adela the poisoned flower that matched her ideologies,the bleeding heart.

[EchoIre]

Username: EchoIre
Lion name: Jasper
Lion gender: Male
Pride: Motoheri Pride
Pride Status: Vagrant Prince
Flower: Spider Flower
Prompt:

"Elope with me."


Jasper never liked being a prince much. Sure, he liked the richness of his life, and who wouldn't enjoy sparring practice and delicate ladies? But, he never had a mind for the political aspect of it. It bored him, and reminded him how much his father disapproved of him. Thankfully, as the youngest son, Jasper never had to bother with politics or his father more than he liked, and instead spent most of his time wooing said ladies mentioned prior. It wasn't just a game to him; Jasper would say he's loved each of his flings in their own way, though young love burns bright and swift.

By the time Adelaide the Mighty wandered into his father's court, Jasper had already been a lover to nearly every available lion and lioness there. However, he didn't see Adelaide as another potential flame. Not until the next day, actually.

Adelaide had been allowed to stay - and much to Jasper's surprise - train with the knights. He was all too excited to spar against her, being the only one in the barracks he hadn't tested his mettle against before, and was again surprised to find that she bested him - and every other lion, save for the commander and his right hand lion. Jasper would say their romance began right then and there, though Adelaide would tell you she wasn't interested in him until about two weeks later, when she caught him on one of his daily walks admiring a bumblebee.

Their romance was secret one; Adelaide was allowed to stay in the kingdom, but Jasper's father knew of her position with her parents, and didn't particularly accept her un-ladylike nature either. But, the two lovers couldn't be kept away from each other. Even when the king's guard was ordered to keep Jasper from meeting with Adelaide, they found a way: floriography. On one midsummer night, Jasper hired a messenger to send Adelaide a floriography scroll and a small bouquet of yellow acacia flowers - the flowers of secret love. Thus, their romance continue, paved by beautiful and secret bouquets.

But, Jasper was still a prince. Eventually, Jasper was betrothed to a neighboring pride's princess. Jasper sent Adelaide a tender bouquet of pink and striped carnations and every other flower of sorrow's bloom, which she returned with a single, long stalk with blushing flowers at its top.

A spider flower, its meaning as clear and bold as Adelaide's voice: elope with me.

Jasper slipped away in the night and fled his kingdom with Adelaide, joining the knight errant on her adventures.

[minifun990]

Username: minifun990
Lion name: Rawiri
Lion gender: Male
Pride: Mystic Isles
Pride Status: Traveller
Flower: Pōhutukawa
Prompt: Rawiri was a bee. A bumble bee to be exact, six legs, antennae, stinger, the whole shebang. He lived in a jumbled nest that was hardly anything more than a collection of buzzing bumblers, no organisation like honey bees. There were a hundred or so of them living there in that hollow between roots, staring out across a vast and dangerous ocean. They were a social bunch, always checking up on each other as they went along on their daily business.

Rawiri had the strange feeling they were not supposed to be a bee. It was a strange feeling for a bee to have, especially as the other bees didn't seem able to even imagine such abstract ideas as identity or that they even were in fact bees.

The other bees were insects through and through, ones whose simple existence seemed to fly around, look for food, get food and reproduce. Rawiri didn't know why he was different, why he could do strange things like wonder what lay across the ocean, or if there was something in the sky that determined their fate.

He was a bee. Bees aren't supposed to have ideas like that.

Bees aren't supposed to be able to feel incomprehensible sadness and anger. But when Rewira flew down from his perch on the soft leaves of the coastal tree that was what he felt. The sun had heated the earth, forming cracks in the layers above the bees nest, and while he had been gone the earth had collapsed in, the nest broken crushing every bee within.

Furious and full of grief Rewira desired vengence, it didnt matter he was different to them all, or that he knew it was illogical. Rewira was going to make the gods regret this. The sky, the moon, the sun, the wind. It didnt matter Rewira would take on everyone of them. He flew to the sky wings burning with determination. He flew higher and higher, so close to the gods and then-

He fell, painting the land with crimson, the sun mocking him, burning brighter than he had seen before.

Bumble bees didnt live long, some just a few months, but Rewira lived less. The tree he grew up underneath, the one who sheltered him from the harsh sea spray and the crumbling cliffs now mourned him with red flowers. They were some of the most beautiful Rewira had seen.

They still were, even as Rewira stood taller, in a new form, in a new life.

“You know, they say the flowers are stained red from the blood of failed vengeance, of lost spirits” A voice said, standing behind the now-lion with a soft smile.. Rewira tilted his head, encouraging the shy lioness to go on.

“I think the flowers are much better as a sign its time for summer celebrations though. They are far too pretty to be so sad.” The two paused then, standing under the pōhutakawa, the lioness sighed.

“You are too Rewira.” (497/500)

[AwkwardAnxiety]

Username: AwkwardAnxiety
Lion name: Melculum
Lion gender: Male
Pride: Jungle Nomads (subpride)
Pride status: Healer
Flower: Matico Flower
Prompt:
Melculum is the Healer of the Jungle Nomads. He is somewhat clumsy in his movements due to his bulk but is delicate and precise in his medical dealings. Living in the rainforest, many lions get injured on protruding plants or are attacked by the strange animals that reside there with them, so he is kept fairly busy much of the time. His favorite herb, that might be called a flower as it has flowers, is the Matico. Not only does it have a beautiful honeycomb-like flower, it's leaves can be used to prevent infection in wounds by crushing the leaves a bit and applying them to the wound. If you leave it in warm water, plentiful here in the rainforest, for a while, a lion can drink it to help with various forms of indigestion. It makes his job much easier to have this flower around and he has helped many lives with it.

In fact, he even used it to save his own life once. He'd been out gathering plants not far from the group's temporary location, when out of the blue a sharp clawed beast flew out of the undergrowth. It tussled with him and scraped and clawed him until he was able to finish it off. After some inspection, he realized that he had disturbed it's nest, but it was too late to worry out that. Besides, he had wounds to tend to. He hurried back to the healer den he'd set up and examined the damage. Nothing was immediately life threatening but there were several deep cuts with gunk and mud buried in them from the fight. He attempted to wash them out but some was stuck. He crushed some of the Matico leaves he'd gathered and placed them in the wounds. After several days of applying them regularly, his deepest cuts were close to just being scars and only a few small scrapes that had escaped his noticed were infected and those were easily treated. He judged that whatever got in the smaller ones could have been life-threatening if he hadn't treated the large ones. [350]

[Flicka]

Username: flicka
Lion name: Moolie
Lion gender: Female
Pride: Frostbite Fields
Pride Status: Spring Spirit
Flower:
Prompt:
For this fluffy poof I would like to know their favorite flower.
-BUT-
I would also like to know how this flowers meaning fits into their story and/or personality!

wip

dang i just wanna say this is a cute chonker!

[Firedancer77]

Username: Firedancer77
Lion name: Patience
Lion gender: Female
Pride: Isle of Roses
Pride Status: Virtue
Flower: Honeysuckle
Prompt:

Patience is a virtue. Within the Mortal Church, the phrase takes on a whole new meaning.

As a virtue, she falls under the gods' jurisdiction alone, though Pride is the god she serves directly under. Patience's job is to fulfill whatever orders she might be given by her superiors, and the lioness has proven herself by fulfilling some of Pride's hardest requests. She came to the pride claiming no memory of who she was, prostrating herself before Pride's throne and swearing her allegiance to the leading god. Pride took her on as his direct servant.

When she came to him a moon later, exposing a plot she had learned of a few days after arriving to expose Pride as a fraud, he realized just how long of a game she was willing to play, and so the name Patience was bestowed upon her.

After that, Pride had Patience keep an eye on his followers, using whatever dirty tricks she needed to learn who might be plotting against the gods. After she exposed a few more rebels, any that were left wised up to her tricks, keeping their mouths shut around her. By then, Pride had his eye on a bigger prize, one Patience was more than happy to get for him.

There was a small pride near the Mortal Church's border, one that Pride wanted to convert, and he decided to use Patience to do so.

"You want me to infiltrate their pride?" She'd asked when he'd finished explaining.

Pride nodded, grinning. "Like these honeysuckles," he paused to point the small flowers out as they passed. "They're beautiful. Sweet. Appealing. But to survive, they take away the resources of the surrounding plants. Some can even grow around trees, girdling their roots and ultimately killing them. And yet, if you looked at them and had no knowledge of their abilities, you would never guess the honeysuckle invaded and wreaked that sort of havoc."

Patience's expression was fierce and calculating. "I understand."

It took two moons to topple the small pride. She approached them how she approached the Mortal Church, feigning memory loss and playing on their charity. As they accepted her, she sowed seeds of discord and distrust, never hinting at it too heavily, but instead laying the groundwork for the pride members to fill in the blanks themselves. They had nothing to really bind them together, and all Patience needed was to give them a little push before the whole pride toppled.

Since then, she has donned every kind of role to destroy prides from the inside. She has been a prisoner. A friend. A lover. An omen. Wherever Pride sends her, she gets the job done.

Pride knows he is playing with fire. He might be cultivating Patience's abilities so that she can turn around and tear down everything he has built. But that is a risk he is willing to take, so long as he believes he can outwit Patience if it were to come down to it.

[500 / 500]